drdanb

Sounds like there's (may be) good consideration for storage, would be good to have at least 1TB available w/lagoon on up for those who want to burn in their CD collections in AIFF or something far better than lossless. And also, a summary of or at least some consideration for how much difference (if any) using only SSD for storage actually makes to the sound? e.g. Meridien Sooloos base level now has a 1TB capacity built in (as well as their excellent software), but at $4,000 SooLong to SooLoos - it's beyond (most) of us. So are we looking at C.A.P.S. 3 PLUS network attached storage still? $2-$3K. Or will any of this levels provide for drives built-in? Denon 3930 CD > Arcam AVR 350 >>; iPod Classic (Apple Lossless)>PeachTree iDac>>Arcam AVR 350; Spotify Premium>PeachTree iDac>>Arcam AVR 350; to GoldenEar Triton 3 (main) and Sonos Play 5's (study, kitchen)

Thanks, Chris. This site is awesome. After many years I've finally upgraded to some decent speakers (GoldenEar Tritons) and boy is the sound great. I'm currently using a Denon 3910 CD/SACD player but ready right now for a music server. After hours of reading everything from Mac Mini's as "noiseboxes" to "Windows is crap", I was left puzzled at the tendency (elsewhere) towards rancor. Of course the ultimate test is listening, BUT...short of spending $2,500 for an SOtM server, I'm really looking forward to your #3 build. A month ago purchased a copy of Amarra HiFi, but with all the "anti-Mac" and "anti-laptop" comments due to the inherently noisy environments, I was afraid to 'hack' my 2012 Air 13" software as advised to start SOMEWHERE and begin downloading in AIFF. Then I could at least use it as my music server for now, so I can start seeing what it sounds like after I start loading my library of 200+ CD's into its 200GB internal drive...Now you're (about to) provide the ideal solution for me...C.A.P.S. v3. WhooEee!! Can't wait. Building it could be very cool...

Thanks for the thorough review, Chris; Any chance the DF would sub for the iPod Classic or new iPod Touch's internal DAC? Thanks, Dan